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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28365945">spectator</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoonsoflegends/pseuds/spoonsoflegends'>spoonsoflegends</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>phantom pains [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Minecraft (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Character Study, Gen, Ghost Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Ghost TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Ghost Wilbur Soot, Hybrids, Post-Exile, Spectator Mode</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:53:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,090</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28365945</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoonsoflegends/pseuds/spoonsoflegends</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Schlatt thinks about it, it’s clear that he didn’t get the short end of the stick. I mean, <em>really,</em> seeing the state of the other two ghosts on the server, he doesn’t feel so bad at all about his own fate anymore.</p><p>He’d already taken it for granted that he’d go to hell. Kind of depressing, but he accepted it. So imagine the surprise when he woke up again, clawing his way right back out of his grave in a world where no one, not even Wilbur or Dream, could see him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alexis | Quackity &amp; Jschlatt, Jschlatt &amp; Toby Smith | Tubbo, Jschlatt &amp; Wilbur Soot, No Romantic Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>phantom pains [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2077380</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>269</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>spectator</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This work is a sequel to my other fic, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28226967">apparition</a>! You don't need to read that fic to understand what happens here, but it's recommended ^^</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When Schlatt thinks about it, it’s clear that he didn’t get the short end of the stick. I mean, really, seeing the state of the other two ghosts on the server, he doesn’t feel so bad at all about his own fate anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d already taken it for granted that he’d go to hell. Kind of depressing, but he accepted it. So imagine the surprise when he woke up again, clawing his way right back out of his grave in a world where no one, not even Wilbur or Dream could see him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Schlatt thinks he’s got it down, actually. There’s gotta be some sort of sacrifice to becoming a ghost. Wilbur lost his memories, and Schlatt… is invisible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s just a silent spectator. To everything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And damn, if he doesn’t try his hardest to do things. His hands go clean through his old desk when he tries to shove it, though, and when he tries to splash some water from a puddle around, his leg falls right into the floor. He can’t even </span>
  <em>
    <span>stand--</span>
  </em>
  <span> he just dips through the ground and gets a face full of dirt he can’t even feel. If he squints and angles his head just right, he can see air pockets and faint lava glow underground, but, well, who’s he gonna tell? God?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he waits, and he watches.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he sees Wilbur the first time, it’s a shock. He’d assumed that all the other ghosts were like him, in some weird not-really-limbo, but Wilbur’s… at least partly there. He can touch things and people hear him when he talks. He’s got that awful stab wound, sure, and his skin’s all grayed out, but he’s visible. He can touch… some things, even if he can’t really feel them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But isn’t it a bitch that his memories are gone?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I mean, he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>pathetic </span>
  </em>
  <span>now. He can hardly bear to hear about what he did when he was alive. How fuckin’ depressing. He bumbles around like a fool with his dumb little smile, like he can’t remember when he blew up the nation Schlatt worked so hard to fix.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>remember when he blew up the nation Schlatt worked so hard to fix. That does seem to be the issue here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tubbo’s doing well, of course. He’s getting some slack from Quackity and Fundy, but the kid’s smart. He’ll get over it. He’d always been on the side of righteousness and whatever, so it’d been a bit surprising when he snapped at his best friend like that.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>‘They’re just discs,’</span>
  </em>
  <span> huh? Isn’t that something?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes, Schlatt can swear Quackity sees him. He doesn’t sleep much, anymore, and Schlatt doesn’t have anything better to do than follow his former cabinet around all day, so when Quackity freezes at the sight of where Schlatt’s reflection should be in windows, and does double takes at the ground where the ex-president’s shadow should be, and checks once, twice, thrice in the mirror to ensure that the horns on his head aren’t growing any longer, Schlatt feels like he’s at least a </span>
  <em>
    <span>little </span>
  </em>
  <span>seen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The horns give Schlatt a bit of pause. He knows about how hybrid traits are contagious, but he hadn’t expected his to spread so quickly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It went like this:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tubbo had started growing horns first, and the tips of his ears had faded into a bit of thin fur at the very end, just within a few weeks of starting work for Schlatt. Schlatt knew the fear he was feeling. The boy had been one of the few without some hybrid traits on him; after all, the server was crawling with them. Wilbur, Techno, and Tommy all had a few feathers here and there from Philza, and Dream and his friends had a bit of fur from Antfrost. Skeppy’s diamond skin is darkened inky black in places, and Bad’s fingertips shine a little bit like gems too. Wilbur and Eret both had hair that turned a bit orange at the ends from hanging around Fundy too much, and soon, most of Schlatt’s cabinet had started to grow twisted horns just like his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tubbo’s, somehow, grew faster. They grew a lot faster than Quackity’s, who can safely conceal his under his beanie. (Schlatt knows he does it just so he doesn’t have to look at them in mirrors. Not for anyone else’s sake.) Tubbo was unlucky like that. His horns are large, and near proportional with Schlatt’s. It gives Schlatt a bit of pause to see the way that Tommy looks distrustfully at the horns and the way Wilbur (not Ghostbur, of course. Hah.) would eye his ears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s like a real omen, he reckons.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Tubbo puts politics before his friendship, Schlatt feels something in his chest. He doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>this kid to be like him. But it seems the horns bring a bit of Schlatt flair with them, and what’s more telling of it than shitty friendships and even shittier actions?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But what can he do?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sticks to watching them all from afar, then, and he thinks he’s the only person who gets to see Sam construct the prison from the base to the top and arm it to the teeth with traps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thinks he’s the only outsider who gets to see Dream cut off his friends. What a fucking idiot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he thinks he’s the only one who gets to see what really happens to Tommy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sure, Ghostbur’s been around, but the fucking idiot doesn’t really see anything. He’s too wrapped up in his blue and his shattered memories and stupid sheep that he named Friend. Fucking pathetic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Schlatt’s been stopping by Logstedshire, of course. Not much actually happens in New L’Manberg most of the time, so it’s not like there’s anything else better for him to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he watches Tommy toss his armor into a pit and get it blown up again and again until he stops resisting. He watches Tommy go to the Nether and just sit there, staring at the lava ocean, like a goddamn weirdo. He watches Tommy lose the shine in his eyes-- it's almost depressing to notice the clear fiery blue from the Pogtopian resistance to a dull greenish-black. His clothes are torn up and muddy and the kid doesn’t even have the energy to care.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The party is missed (“missed,” hah. Dream just guilt tripped Wilbur into not handing the invitations out), Tommy convinces himself that Dream is his only friend-- yeah, that’s bullshit. Schlatt knows he’s a bad person and that he’s in no place to judge, but he thinks he can’t have been </span>
  <em>
    <span>this </span>
  </em>
  <span>bad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hmm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And when Tommy goes to the Nether one last time, Schlatt follows him into the portal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a moment, he looks around, disoriented not because of portal nausea-- nah, he stopped having that the day he died-- but because he forgets that the living take a few seconds longer to make it to the other side of Nether portals, and for a moment he thinks Tommy headed back through.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(He doesn’t think Tommy meant to take the fall.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tommy gets through goddamn eventually though, walking down the path again. This time he looks back over his shoulder every so often, like he’s checking for someone. He stops walking for a moment to stare down into a burning demise, still and silent. Schlatt can’t see why he spends so much time here. It’s such a shitty death. And even though the ex-president doesn’t feel things anymore, he remembers how overwhelmingly hot and uncomfortable the Nether is. Tommy must be melting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thinks it’s an accident, genuinely. When Dream steps out of the Logsted portal, Tommy doesn’t seem to hear it, lost in his head again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Poor kid seems to not have been eating. He sways a little while he’s standing, a detail Schlatt only notices in retrospect.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It goes to shit so fast.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tommy,” Dream calls, and the boy turns and stumbles backwards so fast you’d think someone held a crossbow to his face. His breathing picks up when he yelps, and Dream takes a menacing step forward, probably to ask what the kid’s doing here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dream must have barred him from the Nether while Schlatt was elsewhere, because the admin is mad now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tommy starts to apologize profusely-- “Dream, I’m sorry, Dream, really, I’m sorry, I didn’t-- I didn’t try to go to New L’Manberg or anything like that, I swear I-- I’m not disobeying you or anything, please, Dream, don’t-- don’t--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dream takes a step forward, in silence, and Tommy trips over his own feet in his haste to get away--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Over the edge he falls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As he’s falling, Schlatt swears Tommy’s eyes lock with his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’re bright and clear one last time. Schlatt never sees that blue in them again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Schlatt waits and watches as Dream tells the New L’Manbergians that Tommy killed himself. He waits and watches as they set up a funeral. And he knows it’s unfitting, coming from him, but Schlatt feels nothing but disgust.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I mean, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Jesus,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Tubbo was scared of Schlatt, but not to the point of paying the toll of </span>
  <em>
    <span>his life</span>
  </em>
  <span> to escape.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Schlatt waits and watches as Tommy comes back to New L’Manberg, as a ghost. At first, the ex-president marvels at how normal he seems. Other than the whole… dripping appearance and lava tears, of course, Tommy seems to hold his memories. He knows what Tubbo did to him, what happened to the country, what happened in exile… and overall, he’s pretty damn stable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But of course fate wouldn’t be so kind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He watches Tommy’s ghostly apparition shock Ghostbur into remembering his past, and he watches Tommy argue with Tubbo. At first, he’s not close enough to catch it, but when he moves in closer to hear, he realizes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tommy, </span>
  <em>
    <span>you’re dead,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Tubbo pleads.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, Tubbo, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m not.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Ah.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Tommy doesn’t know he’s fucking died.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>New L’Manberg is a (and no pun intended) fucking ghost town. A few people showed up to gawk at Tommy and his ghostly form, but just a few, and most of them scurried back to their own houses as soon as they could.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Schlatt follows Tubbo, Phil, Tommy, and Fundy to Phil’s temporary home in L’Manberg. The man only went there for the funeral, he knows. He was supposed to be going back to his home where Techno waits tomorrow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Schlatt watches Tommy stare uncomprehendingly at his reflection and </span>
  <em>
    <span>scream</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Phil and Tubbo immediately rush towards him, trying to calm him down, but Tommy doesn’t tear his eyes away from the sight of his face in the mirror as he backs away in horror. His once-blue eyes are filled with magma, no pupils or irises in sight, just like Eret’s, but in fire. And lava drips from his jaw, his fingertips, and his clothes are singed, and it seems like he can’t look away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tubbo is the one to punch the mirror. It shatters. Schlatt sees his hand start to bleed, but it seems irrelevant because Tommy stopped screaming. Instead he stares blankly ahead where the reflection once was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All three of them hold their breath as Tommy catches his.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a few moments, the new ghost starts to blink again. He says, “I can’t… what were we doing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the new presidential decree is put in place to cover all mirrors, Schlatt thinks it’s a good idea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Especially when he watches Tommy walk the streets of the city and everyone averts their eyes and he stares after them, not knowing why. Every once in a while, Tommy catches a glimpse of his image in a window or something and faints dead away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pathetic, both him and Wilbur, who’s back to his insane, rambling self in that stupid Pogtopia coat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>L’Manberg’s independent, Dream was right. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>L’Manberg will never be free. Dream was right about that too. Whether from the ghosts or the past or some new threat from the outside, or civil unrest on the inside, Schlatt doesn’t think the country has ever had the privilege to call itself free.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the ex-president thinks that Dream would have done right to add something else to his tirade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>L’Manberg will never be at peace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because when Quackity flinches at the first glance of his president because he mistook him for a dictator, and when Niki still puts flowers at Wilbur’s gravestone, when Fundy refuses to so much as look at his father, when Ranboo can’t meet his friend’s eyes, Schlatt knows.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>L’Manberg is an unfinished tragedy that writes itself.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If any of the content creators state that they're uncomfortable with fanfiction, I'll gladly take down this work.</p><p>Thank you for reading!! Any comments about what you thought would be appreciated ^^</p></blockquote></div></div>
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